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China’s flagship overseas infrastructure finance program, the Belt and Road Initiative, rose by three-quarters to a record $213.5 billion in 2025 as Beijing sought to take advantage of weakening US influence around the world by pumping money into development projects.
Gas megaprojects and green power dominated the increase in new investment and construction deals, according to research from Australia’s Griffith University and the Green Finance and Development Center in Shanghai. Beijing signed 350 deals last year, up from 293 deals worth $122.6 billion in 2024.
The investment surge comes at a time when tensions between the US and China over trade and technology are disrupting supply chains and President Donald Trump’s military intervention is affecting global energy markets.
Christophe Nedopil Wang, a China energy and finance expert at Griffith University and author of the study, predicted that Beijing’s spending on the BRI will increase further this year due to investments in energy, mining and new technology.
“Global trade and investment volatility will likely spur further investment in supply chain flexibility and alternative export markets for Chinese companies,” he said.
The BRI, launched just months after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, is the Chinese leader’s signature overseas development program, seeking to deepen Beijing’s economic influence and trade ties with the developing world. This has made China the world’s largest bilateral lender, with 150 countries being BRI partners.
The study found that the total cumulative value of BRI contracts and investments since its launch was $1.4 trillion, according to last year’s data.
Growth in 2025 was driven by multibillion-dollar megaprojects, including a gas development in the Republic of Congo led by Southernpec, Nigeria’s Ogidigben Gas Revolution Industrial Park led by China National Chemical Engineering, and a petrochemical plant in North Kalimantan, Indonesia, led by a Chinese joint venture of Tongkun Group and Xinfengming Group.
“Megaprojects are something we haven’t seen before,” Nedopil Wang said. He said that developing countries are showing more confidence in Chinese companies to execute large-scale deals.
“Twelve years ago, these companies were very small. Now as they grow in size they can take on bigger projects – and they need bigger projects to grow,” he said. “The willingness on the part of infrastructure planners and policymakers to trust China is solid.”
The value of energy-related projects last year was $93.9 billion, the highest since the inception of the BRI and more than double the 2024 level. This included $18 billion in wind, solar and waste-to-energy projects, underscoring China’s lead in clean technology.
Metals and mining also hit a record $32.6 billion, with most spending on mineral processing overseas, highlighting how Beijing has used the BRI to secure long-term access to resources. This also includes an increase in investment in copper in the second half of the year. The metal’s supply has tightened as data centers boom to meet artificial intelligence demand.
Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think-tank, said an “emerging pattern” is China strengthening ties with countries whose resources can help it oust the US from its supply chains.
“China’s foreign partnerships are increasingly focused on strategic sectors that support self-reliance, supply-chain flexibility and technological integration,” he said.
He said Beijing had learned a “lesson” from this month’s US actions in Venezuela and threats against Iran and that was to “minimize external influence before a crisis occurs”.
The scale of the BRI has raised concerns about the ability of countries to repay their growing debts to Beijing.
The 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service, a US government service, cites issues such as unsustainable debt obligations and opportunities to secure concessions, opaque credit and loan terms and a lack of reciprocal market access for BRI partners, as well as investments in strategic sectors and infrastructure that jeopardize civil and military interoperability.
The CRS also said that Western analysts and officials find the BRI difficult to track and analyze, describing it as an “umbrella initiative” where projects can be “specifically or loosely linked to the effort” while the ability to track offshore financial activity is complicated by China’s use of onshore financing and special purpose investment vehicles.
Data Visualization by Haosiang Co in Hong Kong
